Chapter 4 - Someone Wanted Sophia Out of the Gala
“My father sold insurance.”
Sophia stood in Dante’s private library with her arms crossed tightly over her chest.
Dante remained beside the fireplace.
“No, he didn’t.”
“You didn’t know him.”
“I knew of him.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“No.”
His voice softened.
“But I know Thomas Bennett was connected to my father.”
Sophia laughed without humor.
“My father wore discount ties and spent Sunday mornings fixing our neighbor’s lawn mower.”
“People can be more than one thing.”
“You would certainly know.”
Dante accepted that quietly.
Sophia turned toward the rain-dark windows.
Her father had died when she was sixteen.
Heart attack.
At least that was what she had always believed.
He had been gentle, funny and chronically terrible at remembering birthdays.
Nothing about Thomas Bennett belonged inside a locked Moretti ledger.
“What did he do?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“You know something.”
Dante hesitated.
That was answer enough.
Sophia faced him.
“Tell me.”
“My father used outside accountants when he wanted transactions separated from the family businesses.”
Sophia felt cold.
“My father was an accountant?”
“Possibly.”
“He never told us.”
“Perhaps he wanted to protect you.”
The irony made her laugh again.
“Worked beautifully.”
Dante stepped closer.
“I’m sorry.”
She looked at him.
The apology sounded real.
That made her angrier.
“Don’t.”
“What?”
“Don’t suddenly become kind because my father might have worked for yours.”
“I’m not.”
“Then what are you doing?”
Dante stopped.
For a moment, all of the power disappeared from his face.
“I’m trying to keep you from being punished for something that happened when you were a child.”
Sophia did not know what to do with that.
Before she could respond, Luca entered.
“We found Rizzo’s assistant.”
“Where?”
“His apartment is empty. Phone abandoned. Passport gone.”
Dante cursed softly.
“And the ledger?”
“Missing.”
Sophia looked between them.
“What happens now?”
Dante answered.
“You finish the gala.”
She stared.
“That’s your plan?”
“My plan is to behave as though we don’t know someone is moving against us.”
“That sounds stupid.”
Luca looked toward the floor.
Dante raised an eyebrow.
“You’re becoming very comfortable.”
“You promoted me to human bait.”
“I did not.”
“You told me to continue normally while somebody threatens me and steals documents containing my father’s name.”
Dante considered that.
“Fair criticism.”
Sophia blinked.
“You’re agreeing?”
“Occasionally.”
That night she returned to her apartment with two security officers waiting downstairs.
She hated it.
She hated even more that Dante had been right.
Someone had entered her apartment.
Nothing obvious was missing.
But her father’s old wooden box had been opened.
Inside she kept photographs, letters and the cheap silver watch he had worn nearly every day.
The watch was gone.
Sophia called Dante.
He answered on the first ring.
“Where are you?”
“My apartment.”
“Are the guards with you?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
She looked at the empty box.
“Someone took my father’s watch.”
Silence.
“I’m coming.”
“You don’t have to—”
The call ended.
Twenty-three minutes later, Dante was inside her small apartment.
He looked absurdly out of place among thrift-store bookshelves, mismatched coffee mugs and a couch Sophia had assembled herself.
He crouched beside the wooden box.
“Nothing else?”
“No.”
“Then the watch meant something.”
“It was worth maybe eighty dollars.”
“Value isn’t always money.”
Sophia sat down.
“I don’t understand any of this.”
Dante noticed a photograph beside the box.
Sophia at twelve.
Her mother.
Her father.
He picked it up carefully.
Then his expression changed.
“What?”
Dante turned the photograph toward the light.
On Thomas Bennett’s wrist was the silver watch.
But behind the family stood another man.
Partially hidden.
Older.
Dark suit.
Dante knew him immediately.
“My father.”
Sophia stood.
“What?”
“Your father knew mine personally.”
She stared at the photograph.
A memory suddenly returned.
Her father once telling her never to trust a man simply because he owned an expensive suit.
She had laughed.
Now the memory felt completely different.
Dante studied the background.
A lake.
A stone house.
A date written behind the photograph.
Twenty years ago.
“Sophia.”
“Yes?”
“Where was this taken?”
“My father said Wisconsin.”
Dante shook his head.
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“Because that house belonged to my family.”
Sophia’s pulse quickened.
Dante looked toward Luca.
“Call the driver.”
“Where are we going?”
Dante’s eyes returned to Sophia.
“To find out what your father hid there.”
Two hours later, they were driving north through rain.
Sophia sat beside Chicago’s most feared man, holding the photograph that had rewritten everything she knew about her childhood.
She thought the worst revelation would be learning why Thomas Bennett had worked for the Morettis.
She was wrong.
Because buried beneath the floorboards of that old house was something her father had hidden for twenty years.
Something people had already threatened, stolen and lied to obtain.
May you like
And when Sophia found it, Dante Moretti would finally understand why somebody wanted her gone before the gala ever began.
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